Having just finished and posted my 2020 Reading List, and gathering from the calendar on the wall of my office that it’s now 2022, and that I should probably not put this one off.
(Also that Mycena interrupta, the Pixie’s Parasol mushroom, is the only species of 500 species of Mycena that is blue, and that the fossil record of this gorgeous little mushroom dates back 180 million years, an unbroken chain linking back to remote prehistory.)
Getting these Reading Lists out is part of finally putting some of those things to rest and picking up and carrying on. In the interest of having time enough to Carry On a bit more today: here’s what I read last year. As always, titles in Bold are audiobooks. The rest are the physical page-turners.
Maximum Bob (Elmore Leonard)
The Cutie (Donald E. Westlake)
A Scanner Darkly (Philip K. Dick) — (Read by Paul Giamatti, I highly recommend it. He’s fabulous.)
Red Dragon (Thomas Harris)
Snuff (Terry Pratchett)
Hikaru No Go Vol. 1 (Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata)
Hikaru No Go Vol. 2 (Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata)
Hikaru No Go Vol. 3 (Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata)
Hikaru No Go Vol. 4 (Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata)
Hikaru No Go Vol. 5 (Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata)
Hikaru No Go Vol. 6 (Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata)
Hikaru No Go Vol. 7 (Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata)
Hikaru No Go Vol. 8 (Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata)
Hikaru No Go Vol. 9 (Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata)
Hikaru No Go Vol. 10 (Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata)
Hikaru No Go Vol. 11 (Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata)
Hikaru No Go Vol. 12 (Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata)
Hikaru No Go Vol. 13 (Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata)
On Writing (Stephen King)
The Stand (Stephen King)
Just After Sunset (Stephen King)
Batman: Year One (Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli)
Batman and Son (Grant Morrison)
The Black Casebook (Various)
Batman: The Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul (Various)
Batman: The Black Glove (Grant Morrison)
Batman: R.I.P. (Grant Morrison)
Final Crisis (Grant Morrison)
Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman)
Captain America: Man Out of Time (Mark Waid, Jorge Molina)
I, The Jury (Mickey Spillane)
Captain America: Winter Soldier (Ed Brubaker)
Monstrous Regiment (Terry Pratchett)
Queen and Country Vol 1: Operation Broken Ground (Greg Rucka)
Queen and Country Vol 2: Operation Morningstar (Greg Rucka)
Queen and Country Vol 3: Operation Crystal Ball (Greg Rucka)
The Golden Apples of the Sun (Ray Bradbury)
The Refrigerator Monologues (Catherynne M. Valente)
Best Horror of the Year Vol. 10 (ed. Ellen Datlow)
Jimmy the Kid (Donald E. Westlake)
A Stir of Echoes (Richard Matheson)
Sin City: The Hard Goodbye (Frank Miller)
The Tao of Pooh (Benjamin Hoff)
Star Trek: Voyager: Mosaic (Jeri Taylor) — (Written by one of the show writers, read by Kate Mulgrew.)
10% Happier (Dan Harris)
The Outsider (Stephen King) — (Read by Will Patton. One of King’s best.)
46. Mostly comics and audiobooks.
Honestly?
It was a great year for reading. So many of these were excellent. The last four in particular stick in my mind, not just because they’re the end of the list, but because those were the first four books I read in a world where my grandma Linda wasn’t there to call and talk to about them, and each helped me, in their own way, to understand that the act of reading itself is communication, of communion between the living, and, sometimes—as when we read Dickens or Poe or Westlake, or Matheson, or Bradbury—with the dead.
They’re great books. Books are great.
I’m going to go get back to the one I’m reading, now, actually, before I get too far into this cup of tea.
A lot has happened so far, in 2022. I’ll be back soon. Tell you all about it.
—m.